


Lucky in Love

by Rhianne



Category: The Sentinel
Genre: Developing Relationship, Humor, Hurt/Comfort, M/M, Slash
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-06-04
Updated: 2012-06-04
Packaged: 2017-11-06 20:08:59
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 10,131
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/422719
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Rhianne/pseuds/Rhianne
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Not even Major Crime is immune to gossip... </p><p>Spoilers for all episodes from Attraction through to Secret, especially Vow of Silence and Blind Man's Bluff.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Lucky in Love

Hi! I’m Detective Brown. My name is Henri, but everyone around here just calls me H. 

Welcome to Major Crimes, babe. There are a few things you’ll need to know if you’re going to fit into the department while you’re here. Nothing unusual – well, I guess that’s not strictly true, there are certain people within the precinct who’ve labeled Major Crimes as Cascade’s very own Area 51 – but if you just bear a few things in mind, then we’ll all get along just fine. 

Don’t worry, I’m not going to bombard you with too much information, just the important stuff. We’ll get into the details later, like how if you see Captain Banks on his third coffee of the morning and it’s not ten am yet, stay the heck out of his way.

But we don’t have a whole lot of time, so I’ll just get right to the important stuff. In this case, Ellison. Or rather, Ellison and Sandburg. Ah, I see you’ve heard of them. Not that that’s difficult, considering all the press coverage during the Zeller case. But that’s a whole other story, and I’m afraid it’s not mine to tell. All I will say is, you’d do well to keep an open mind, okay?

So it all started a few years ago, just after Hairboy (that’s our nickname for Blair Sandburg, in case you didn’t know) started riding with Ellison. Well actually no, the full story goes back to long before that. See, Major Crimes has always had this thing that we do. It’s morgue humor I guess. If you asked Sandburg he’d probably give you a lecture on how within a closed society like the police force it helps form a bond between team members; how it acts as a barrier between us and some of the terrible things we see while on duty. A crutch to help us stay sane while we do our jobs. But then that’s his specialty, not mine, so you’d have to ask him.

Though I’d rather you didn’t, to be honest. Neither he nor Ellison know anything about this, you see, and well, God help the person who lets the cat out of the bag. Not after we’ve somehow managed to keep the secret for all these years…

Anyway, where was I? Oh, right, yeah – morgue humor. All the police departments down at the precinct have something that they do together; a ritual of sorts. For example, narcotics seems to be full of guys who play golf, and every Saturday, work permitting, you can find them all down on the North Shore golf club, walking for miles and comparing golf swings, just kinda letting go of the stresses of life on the force. 

Vice goes down to one of the sports bars every Friday night, and the guys (and girls) sit there for hours, having a few beers and shooting the breeze. 

Major Crimes? Well, we have this poker game once a month, or at least we try to, but with the crazy hours we work it doesn’t always happen.

In the meantime, well, we bet. Put some money down on a basketball game, or who we think is going to win the world series, that kind of thing. It got easier once we bought Little Stogie, and these days we tend to lay our money down on him rather than any other actual sports, but ever since I can remember, and certainly since I joined the department, there’s always been a book running on something. I’m not just talking sports, either.

It’s only meant as a bit of fun, you know? Certainly nothing serious. After all, gambling for monetary gain is illegal in the state of Washington, unless it’s meant for amusement rather than for profit (well, I’m paraphrasing here, but you get the idea).

So we can’t exactly bet for money, but it’s fun, and it lightens the tone around here, so instead we bet for paper money. One of Rhonda’s jobs is to keep the book going, and we use whoever’s winning or losing the bets to decide which one of us buys the donuts each week, or who brings the beer to the poker night, that sort of thing. It’s more light-hearted than actually gambling for money, not to mention more on the right side of the law, and it’s fairer than the rookie having to do the grunt work all the time.

Are you with me so far? Does that make sense? Good. So we bet on all kinds of things. Some of the bets only last a few days, like the time when Sandburg’s warehouse blew up and Jim took him in. None of us could believe it when we found out that Jim ‘Straight-Laced’ Ellison had a hippy-looking grad student living with him, and it didn’t take long for people to start betting on how long it was going to be before Jim kicked him out again, or worse. No-one believed that they’d even last out the week except Rhonda – some of the bets were only hours long. 

It’s funny though, I remember overhearing Carolyn and Rhonda talking at the time. Carolyn was amazed that Jim had even considered taking Sandburg in, and was one of the first to bet that the kid wouldn’t even last 24 hours. That sparked a whole flurry of similar bets, after all, she was married to the guy, right? Surely if anyone was going to know, it would be her. But Rhonda just smiled quietly, and said they’d last out the week together. Needless to say, she won a whole lot of money for that bet, though Rhonda never comes to the poker match, so Captain Banks brought her a huge bouquet of flowers instead.

So that one was resolved pretty quickly. Most of them are, after all a bet that lasts for weeks and weeks without some kind of payoff pretty much misses the point, but just occasionally there’s something that runs and runs. That goes on so long, in fact, it becomes one of the department’s in-jokes, on a par with Rafe’s GQ suits and the fact that Ellison drops his gun more times than anyone else in Cascade police history. (For a long time, barely a week would go by without someone leaving a tube of superglue on Ellison’s desk.)

It all started after that weird business with Laura McCarthy. That was such an odd case. There was a spate of diamond thefts all over the West Coast, you see, and these things went on for months. High-profile, daring thefts which, to be honest, had us all completely baffled. Captain Banks was acting like a bear with a sore head, though none of us really minded his shouting. He can be a bit gruff, but Major Crimes couldn’t ask for a better Captain. He’ll always back you up when things get tough, so we tend to cut him a lot of slack when we’re on a difficult case, especially since he manages to keep the brass off our backs 90% of the time.

So these heists are going on, and we’ve got very little evidence and things are getting desperate, right? My partner, Brian Rafe, and I are out following up on another lead, when suddenly we get a call from the Captain telling us to get our butts over to Chatfield’s, because Ellison has sealed the place off on a whim and a whole bunch of ‘do-you-know-who-I-am’ types are pissed. 

It was when I arrived that I first heard it…

 

~*~*~

 

_  
…“Did you see that?” the question attracted Brown’s attention and he glanced round, curiously searching for the speaker from the crowds of people all milling around._

_It was a madhouse. Ellison closing off the restaurant had pissed off a whole bunch of people, and over in the corner he could see Captain Banks desperately trying to placate a handful of overweight men in dinner jackets that Henri recognized as members of the city council. He winced, turning away before he was recognized. He had a feeling that now was definitely one of those ‘three coffees before ten am’ moments, and not for the first time, Henri silently thanked God that he wasn’t Jim Ellison. He prayed that they found something important at the restaurant, otherwise he had no doubt that whatever grief the Captain was being given, afterwards he’d pass it on to Ellison ten-fold._

_Then he saw two uniformed officers standing just a few feet away, ostensibly providing crowd control, since the media had apparently got wind of what was going down and a new camera crew seemed to be arriving every few minutes, not to mention the bystanders who were milling around._

_Wryly, he couldn’t help but notice that Ellison was nowhere to be seen._

_It was plain to see to anyone who cared to look that the two officers were too busy gossiping about something to actually be watching the crowd, and Henry stepped closer, curious to know what was going on._

_“…Nah, you’re not serious,” continued the taller officer, a thin, blond guy that Henri didn’t recognize. “Ellison? I didn’t think he had it in him.”_

_“I swear to God!” answered his partner. “I saw that hippie-guy, Sandburg, come out of the cloakroom with this huge grin on his face, and when I glanced in, Ellison was there necking with this redhead!”_

_The blond guy laughed. “No wonder Captain Banks is in such a foul mood,” he said._

_At first, the blond wasn’t the only one who was skeptical. Leaving the uniforms to their idle gossiping, Henri headed inside the club and joined his own partner. Together they began interviewing people and, ten minutes later, a furious Simon Banks joined them._

_“Where’s Ellison?” he demanded without preamble, and Rafe shook his head. “Sorry Captain,” he said. “I haven’t seen him since we arrived.”_

_“What about Sandburg?” Henri added. “Surely Ellison will be with him?”_

_But Rafe just nudged his partner’s shoulder and pointed over to the corner of the room, where Sandburg was sitting at one of the empty tables, alone._

_Simon stalked off immediately, muttering something about errant detectives and running a kindergarten._

_Curious, Henry watched as Banks approached Sandburg and after a brief conversation both men disappeared into the back, with Sandburg gesturing wildly and talking the whole way._

_Seconds later both men reappeared with a very sheepish looking Jim Ellison, complete with rumbled clothes and traces of distinctive red lipstick on his face._

_Henri and Rafe shared a look that was half-amusement and half-stunned surprise.  
_

 

~*~*~

 

Luckily, Banks’ temper tends to be fairly short-lived, so Ellison got away with just a bit of a tongue-lashing. We all thought that was the end of it, but then, a couple of days later…

 

~*~*~

__

_Yawning, Henri got up from his desk and headed to the break room. He needed coffee and, since he was still in Rafe’s bad books after that incident with the woman who wasn’t, it wouldn’t hurt for him to play errand boy for a couple of days._

_Most of Major Crimes was out in the field, with Rafe and Brown following up leads and trying to make some kind of connection between the robberies that might lead to a suspect, so he wasn’t surprised that the break room was empty. The ‘broken’ sign on the coffee machine was more of a problem, though, and after a few heartfelt curses he headed down onto the next floor, where there was a bigger machine._

_Turning the corner, Henri found himself face to face with the two officers from Chatfield’s the other night, as well as Robinson from Vice._

_“Hey, Brown!” Robinson greeted him. “Just the guy I wanted to see. Got a question for you.”_

_“What?”_

_“Levelle here was just telling me about Ellison,” he said, and Brown grinned._

_“What can I say? We’re just fending the women off up in Major Crimes,” he joked._

_“What?” Robinson looked confused._

_“No, I’m not talking about that woman the other night,” Levelle impatiently. “I’m talking about Sandburg.”_

_“Sandburg?” Henri echoed. “What about him?”_

_“Haven’t you seen him this morning?”_

_“Briefly,” Henri thought back to earlier that morning when he’d first arrived into work. Ellison and Sandburg had been in their usual positions at Jim’s desk; Jim sitting at the computer and Sandburg next to him, alternately scribbling on a notepad and flicking through the pages of a thick hardback book. “Why?”_

_Robinson grinned. “Didn’t you think they both seemed a little…preoccupied?”_

_Henri opened his mouth to say no, but then he paused. Ellison had seemed grimmer than usual and even Sandburg had been quiet, with none of the banter and bickering that normally ensued when they were working. In fact, when they had spoken to each other they’d done so in hushed tones, Sandburg’s face earnest and concerned as he talked. “Well, now that you mention it…” he began hesitantly, not too sure where this conversation was headed._

_“See! I told you!” Levelle crowed in delight. “He’s jealous!”_

_Henri frowned. “What are you talking about?”_

_“Sandburg,” Robinson replied with a broad grin. “He’s jealous of Ellison and that woman.”_

_Henri laughed, turning away and putting a quarter into the coffee machine. “Are you nuts?” he asked. “Hairboy gets more dates than anyone else in the department. Just because Ellison’s finally met someone, why the hell should Sandburg care?” With that his coffee was ready, and he lifted the cup out of the machine before putting in another quarter for Rafe._

_“Ah, the naiveté of youth,” Robinson replied condescendingly as Henri took another sip of coffee. “Don’t you see it? They’re fucking each other.”_

_The coffee went everywhere, leaving Henri coughing as the hot liquid covered his clothes. “What?!” he spluttered._

_“They’re. Sleeping. Together,” Robinson continued with a satisfied grin. “Why else would Ellison have asked Sandburg to move in with him?”_

_Henri frowned, shaking his head incredulously. “Sandburg’s digs blew up, remember? He was homeless. Ellison just gave him a place to stay.”_

_“For five months?” Levelle queried. “How long does it take to find an apartment anyway?”_

_Henri shrugged as he reached for Rafe’s coffee. “Jim’s just helping out a friend, that’s all.”_

_“Are you kidding? Sandburg’s been moping around like a lost puppy ever since the other night. I reckon Ellison’s given him the boot.”_

_“You’re way off base,” Henri dismissed the suggestion. “And if you want some advice, I’d can the speculation before Jim overhears you. He is not someone you want to piss off.”_

_With that he walked away, heading up to Major Crimes and handing Rafe his coffee. When he got back to his desk he saw that Ellison and Sandburg had returned, and couldn’t help but chuckle to himself at the absurdity of Levelle’s suggestion. The very idea was nuts._

_And yet, when he glanced up a couple of hours later, Henri couldn’t help but notice that Jim and Blair were deep in conversation, sitting so close together that their chairs were touching. As he watched, one hand fiddling idly with his pen, Blair leaned over and put one hand on Jim’s arm, talking so quietly that Henri couldn’t hear what he was saying. Slowly Jim’s expression changed from an almost pained weariness into a tired, slow smile as he listened to his partner, nodding, and Robinson’s words played out unbidden in Henri’s mind._

_They couldn’t be, could they?  
_

 

~*~*~

 

As it turned out, Ellison’s lady friend was actually in on the robberies, and everyone was pretty careful around Jim for a few days. Well hell, even if they’d only just met, that still had to suck, right?

So that case was solved, and I tried to dismiss the idea of Jim and Blair being a couple out of my mind. Well, it was just so ridiculous. Having said that, once the thought had been planted in my head, for some reason I couldn’t quite dismiss it out of hand.

I found myself watching them every so often, wondering. The daft thing is, the more I watched, the less absurd the idea seemed. I mean, they were always together, in spite of the fact that Sandburg had a paying, supposedly full-time job at Rainier University – he never seemed to leave Ellison’s side. 

The more his 90-day pass faded into increasingly distant memory, the less any of us really believed the story about Sandburg writing his dissertation on closed societies. I mean, I know a little about research rules, and surely if he was, he’d have to be riding with more of us than just Ellison?

Besides, they were always so secretive. I don’t know about the others, but I lost count of the number of times they’re conversation stopped whenever someone else came into the bullpen. They were obviously hiding something, and not even hiding it well. The question was, were they hiding what I was beginning to suspect? Were they more than just friends? 

Then one morning a few weeks later, it became more than just *my* idle curiosity…

 

~*~*~

__

_“Hey, Simon!” Sandburg greeted cheerfully as he entered the bullpen, with Ellison right behind him. His shout briefly attracted the attention of everyone in the room, including Brown._

_Captain Banks rolled his eyes good-naturedly and walked over to Jim’s desk. “You’re never going to get the hang of this whole ‘Captain’ thing, are you Sandburg?” he asked and Blair grinned._

_“Repeat after me, Simon,” he said, bouncing on his heels. “I am not a cop! Technically, you’re not *my* Captain.”_

_Jim laughed and smoothly took over before Simon could reply. “I wanted to talk to you about getting some leave, Captain.”_

_“Sure Jim,” Simon nodded. “When?”_

_“A couple of weeks,” Jim replied._

_“How long has it been since you took any leave, Jim?” Brown asked curiously, glancing up from his desk._

_“Too long,” Sandburg interrupted wryly._

_“I am kind of tired,” Jim admitted, and Brown couldn’t help but notice the dark shadows that had formed under his eyes._

_“I don’t see a problem with you taking leave, as long as nothing big breaks in the meantime,” Simon agreed. “Just fill the forms in and I’ll sign off on it.”_

_“Thanks Simon,” both Jim and Blair echoed together._

_“You want to ride with me and Rafe while Jim’s away?” Brown asked Sandburg, noticing the glare that Ellison threw his way for offering._

_“No thanks, Henri,” Blair smiled. “I’m actually going away with Jim.”_

_“Oh,” Brown echoed in surprise._

_The news that Jim and Blair were going away on holiday together reminded him of Levelle’s comments, and he found himself watching the two men as they moved away, talking quietly with Simon. He saw how close they were standing, how Blair was watching Jim with something akin to hero worship. He saw the contented smile on Jim’s face, and suddenly Brown could see what Levelle was talking about._

_More importantly, he was starting to truly believe it._

_Rafe poked him in the shoulder. “What is it?” he asked with a puzzled glance at Jim and Blair. “What are you looking at?”_

_Brown hesitated, uncertain whether or not to confide his suspicions to his partner. It was one thing to keep his own counsel, but Brown wasn’t stupid. He knew there was prejudice within the police force, and rumors like this could damage more than just Jim’s reputation. But somehow he couldn’t see Rafe as a homophobe, and the rumors were apparently flying around the precinct already, regardless of Brown’s own silence on the subject._

_Eventually he sighed, standing up and pulling Rafe out into the corridor. He doubted whether Ellison and Sandburg would have been able to hear him even if they’d stayed at his desk, but something was telling him not to take the risk._

_“What would you say,” he began slowly, “if I told you that I thought Ellison and Sandburg were seeing each other?”_

_“They what?” Rafe echoed incredulously, instinctively turning to look at the pair, before turning back and staring at his partner as if he’d gone mad._

_“They’re a couple,” Brown repeated, his conviction growing every time he said it. “They’re sleeping together.”_

_“I’d say you were out of your mind,” Rafe hissed in answer to his partner’s earlier question. “Do you have any idea what Jim would do if he heard you? Or even the Captain?”_

_Brown nodded. “That’s exactly what I said,” he replied, quickly repeating his conversation with Levelle and Robinson. “But the more I think about it, the more I think that they might be right.”_

_“But Sandburg’s had dates with half the women in the building,” Rafe protested, “and Ellison was married.”_

_“The marriage didn’t last,” Brown said, glancing nervously into the bullpen in case anyone was lurking nearby, “and I’ve never seen Hairboy have more than two dates in a row with any one person. Now they’re going on holiday together?”_

_“You’re mad,” Rafe repeated, shaking his head in amused exasperation._

_“Twenty bucks,” Brown said on impulse._

_“What?”_

_“I’ll bet you $20 that they’re a couple.”_

_“Oh, for God’s sake,” Rafe muttered. “How are you going to prove it?” he asked with raised eyebrows. “I doubt either of them would appreciate it if you just came right out and asked them.”_

_“So we’ll make it a long bet,” Brown shrugged. “Sooner or later they’ll slip up somehow, or if you’re right one of them will get married or settle down with a woman, something like that. Twenty bucks.”_

_“You’re on,” Rafe grinned. “Easiest money I’ll ever make.”  
_

 

~*~*~

 

For two weeks we kept our little wager to ourselves, only talking about it when we were alone in stakeouts. The more I thought about it, the more convinced I became, though Rafe didn’t buy it for a moment.

Then we were in the bullpen one morning while Jim and Blair were on holiday. It was a fairly quiet morning, just catching up on some paperwork and going through some old notes ready for a high-profile court appearance next month. Suddenly, Captain Banks came storming through the bullpen with a face like thunder.

 

~*~*~

__

_“Rafe! Brown! With me,” he snapped without looking in their direction._

_“Captain?” Rafe asked in surprise, watching as Simon reached for a phone and began snapping orders into it. Sharing a concerned look, both Rafe and Brown put their pens down and stood, Brown reaching automatically for the gun in his desk._

_“What’s going on, Captain?” Brown asked._

_“Ellison and Sandburg are in trouble,” he growled. The three men left the bullpen almost at a run, with Simon filling them in as they went._

_“A monastery,” he began. “Only those two could find a hit man in a monastery.”_

_“A monastery?” asked Brown._

_“A hit man?” echoed Rafe._

_“That’s where they went on holiday,” he explained. “Some theory of Sandburg’s about Ellison needing somewhere peaceful to de-stress,” he added offhandedly, and Brown couldn’t help noticing that he seemed to hesitate, wincing slightly before continuing with a sigh. “Apparently they stumbled into a Federal Witness Protection Scheme – it seems one of the monks was a former mob guy named Jackie Kozinski. Now they’ve had hit men sent by his former associates trying to kill them all.”_

_An hour later the three men were involved in the clean up at St. Sebastian’s. Surprisingly, when they’d arrived, they’d found everything already under control, in spite of how frantic Simon had been about the two men._

_As he began interviewing some of the monks to get a clearer picture of what the hell had happened, Brown couldn’t help but grin in relief – it seemed that the famous Ellison/Sandburg luck had held out yet again._

_Unfortunately, that luck hadn’t extended to everyone, he thought soberly, as the ambulance crew wheeled out a cloth-covered body on a stretcher. The monk he was talking with turned slightly to watch the grim procession so Brown paused in his questions, wondering again how Ellison and Sandburg had managed to survive the attempted massacre that had wrecked the peace at the monastery._

_At first, Brown thought that the body was one of the hit man who had been killed, but as he watched, Sandburg and Ellison came up to the stretcher, and Jim uncovered the face of the corpse._

_The horror on Blair’s face made Brown’s heart sink, and he realized that the body was one of the monks – apparently one that Blair had known._

_From a few feet behind them, a guy Henri didn’t recognize was being herded into a squad car, struggling with the uniforms as he yelled at the body of the monk with smug glee in his eyes._

_“I got you, Kozinski. You son of a bitch!”_

_Henri frowned at the upset on Blair’s face, then watched in stunned surprise as the kid turned and threw himself furiously at the guy who’d spoken._

_It seemed that Jim was as shocked as Henri, because it took a second for Jim to reach out and grab Sandburg by the jacket, hauling him back as the car’s motor roared into life. “Whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa. Easy. Come on.”_

_But Blair wasn’t listening, fighting with Jim in single-minded rage. Brown started walking towards Jim, ready to lend a hand and wondering exactly who the hell the monk had been to Blair, but before he could go more than a couple of steps Blair subsided. “Come on. It's all right. Let it go.”_

_Jim had one arm around Sandburg’s shoulders, pulling Blair in tight to his own chest while the other held on to Blair’s arm. Interestingly Sandburg allowed the half-hug for a few seconds - longer than Brown would have expected - before shaking Jim off, backing away with his arms raised and a grief-stricken expression on his face._

_Moving back over to the body, Blair reached out and touched the monk’s hair, and Brown wasn’t sure which of them was the more shocked when the body suddenly moved under his hand._

_“No. I got you,” the not-corpse said, sitting up on the stretcher to watch the squad car as it disappeared round the corner out of sight._

_Blair looked up at Jim, wild-eyed, and Jim just grinned back, shrugging. “It's a miracle.”_

_“Why didn't you tell me?”_

_Relieved that the apparent crisis was over, Brown turned back to the monk he’d been questioning, leaving Ellison and Sandburg to each other._

_It wasn’t long before all Brown’s interviews had been completed, and he found himself perched on the hood of his car, waiting for his partner so that they could both go back to the precinct and some semblance of normality._

_“Did you see Ellison and Sandburg earlier?” Rafe asked as he walked up to the car._

_“Yep,” Brown grinned, knowing instantly what his partner was referring to. “I told you,” he said smugly._

_“Told you what?” a female voice asked, and both men spun round to see Carolyn Plummer behind them, having appeared seemingly out of nowhere._

_Brown hesitated, trying to think of a convincing cover story, but Rafe answered before he could come up with anything believable. “H here thinks that Ellison and Sandburg are sleeping together,” he said cheerily, and Brown resisted the urge to swat his partner upside the head. Revealing his theories to Ellison’s ex-wife hadn’t been high on his agenda for the day. Or any other day, for that matter._

_“What?!” exclaimed Carolyn, turning stunned eyes onto Brown. “You think they’re what? Why the hell would you think that? Jim’s not gay!”_

_Brown opened his mouth to say something, but no words came out. What the hell could he say to her, anyway?_

_Then his day, unbelievably, got worse, as Captain Banks headed over to the small group. “Gentlemen, Carolyn,” he greeted cheerfully. Then he stopped, glancing curiously between the three detectives and taking in Rafe’s amusement, Carolyn’s defensive stance and Brown’s obvious embarrassment. “What’s going on?” he asked, taking out the cigar that was hanging - unlit as usual - from his lips._

_Carolyn looked expectantly at Brown, who was desperately praying that the ground would open up and swallow him whole. The seven circles of hell had to be better than being forced to answer this question._

_Again, Rafe answered for his partner. “Ellison and Sandburg have a secret,” he announced gleefully, “and H thinks he knows what it is!”_

_In spite of his own unease, Brown couldn’t help notice that if anything the Captain looked alarmed, a sharp intake of breath his only response for several seconds. Then he swallowed once before replying._

_“Oh?” he asked simply, but the Captain’s usually deep voice was tight and high with tension. Exchanging a quick glance with his partner, H could see that he hadn’t been the only one to notice the Captain’s response, and suddenly face-to-face with the thought that the Captain may well already know about the two of them, Brown found the confidence to answer._

_After all, he *was* supposed to be a detective - it was his job to notice things like this, for God’s sake._

_“We think that they’re sleeping together,” he said bluntly, his eyes meeting the Captain’s as if daring him to deny it._

_Half expecting a tirade about police regulations, H was stunned when, after a couple of seconds, the Captain burst out laughing, a deep, heartfelt belly-laugh that simultaneously attracted the attention of several other groups of people milling around the crime scene and brought tears to the Captain’s eyes._

_“Sir?” Carolyn asked, confused by his response, and slowly the Captain’s laugh calmed down to amused chuckles. Regarding his detectives with a wry, oddly relieved looking grin, Simon picked up his cigar again and walked away without another word._

_The surprisingly mild response emboldened Henri even more, and he shouted after the Captain: “Twenty bucks says I’m right, Captain!”_

_Turning round, Simon carried on walking backwards as he nodded. “You’re on!” he said, and the trio left behind could hear his chuckles echoing back to them until he climbed into his car and drove away._

__

~*~*~

 

After that things settled down for a while. Well, it’s not like we weren’t busy, what with Simon and his kid going missing, us trying to protect a spectacularly unhelpful singer from an escaped felon and a dozen other crazy cases.

There were other bets as well – ones we could make public – to occupy our time.

We bet on how many donuts Joel Taggert from the bomb squad would get through in a day, how many games of Solitaire we could each get through before Captain Banks noticed and started shouting, and even on who was going to be the next one the Captain chewed out (the chances of it being Ellison were always pretty good). It might sound heartless, but everyone knew that it was only meant in fun – Major Crimes is one of the most tight-knit departments in the entire precinct.

I was still utterly convinced that Jim and Blair were more than just room-mates, even though other people in the department thought I was nuts. After all, there was a succession of women for both of them. Beverley Sanchez and some blond woman I heard about but never met for Jim, and Blair was still sort of seeing that doctor from the Ebola case a few weeks before - Sonia Price (yes, Ebola - see, I told you we got all the crazy cases).

Every time Blair came in grinning after a date the night before, or teasing Jim about some woman he’d met in a bar, Rafe would crow and demand his $20, but I always stuck to my guns. You see, the ‘relationships’ (if you could call it that) the guys had never lasted more than a handful of dates, and they spent almost all their spare time together. If Jim took a day off, it was to go fishing with Blair. If Blair called from the university with some problem or other, Jim always dropped everything and went running to his side, just as if Jim was ever having a bad day, Blair stuck to him like crazy-glue.

And the touching continued. Even if you could explain away incidents like at the monastery, which given that Hairboy thought an old friend of his had been murdered I guess you could, there were just too many non life-threatening incidents to be able to dismiss them out of hand.

A day didn’t go by when Jim didn’t ruffle Blair’s hair, or walk arm in arm with him out of the bullpen, or steer Sandburg out of the room with a hand on the small of his back – there was always something that would make me hold on to that $20 for just a little bit longer.

Even Rafe and Carolyn couldn’t deny the change that had come over Jim since Hairboy started riding with him. He was calmer, less quick to anger, more open with the rest of us. Not that he was ever the cold-hearted bastard that some people outside of the department had labeled him, you understand. 

Most of the precinct outside Major Crimes have only ever dealt with him on high-profile cases, where Jim is single-minded in his pursuit of the truth. It’s the nature of the beast, I guess, and it’s what makes him a damn good detective.

But it means that people haven’t seen him much when he’s off-duty. There’s a playful goofiness to Jim when he’s relaxed – the guy’s actually a lot of fun to be around when he lets his hair down (metaphorically speaking, of course), but with the Pre-Sandburg Ellison there was always a quiet reserve – a part of him that he kept locked away.

That’s different now – and rightly or wrongly I say it’s all down to Hairboy. He’s different when Blair’s around – more relaxed, more contented somehow. To put it quite simply, he smiles more. It’s not my imagination either. I’m a detective, I’m trained to analyze body language. If Jim’s got a headache or is having a bad day, he gets this small frown between his eyes, and his shoulders tense up. But then Hairboy shows up, and almost immediately you can see Jim relax – have a look next time you’re in the bullpen.

So by this time the number of people who knew about the bet had increased until most of the department was in on it, though we were all still damn careful to keep it within Major Crimes and away from Jim or Blair’s prying ears. We nearly slipped up a couple of times, though. Jim can be a sneaky son of a bitch, and more than once he’s appeared out of nowhere when some of us have been talking about it and almost overheard us. At one point I was sure he had heard, because he gave us the strangest look, but he was right over the other side of the bullpen, so I assume we got away with it. He certainly never said anything.

Of course, betting on something that, let’s be honest, was probably never going to be confirmed for sure got dull pretty quickly, so we started making more and more outlandish bets on how we’d find out, or what had got them together in the first place. Rafe still didn’t believe it, but he played along all the same, betting Rhonda $30 that they got together after that mess with David Lash.

Probably one of the most outrageous suggestions I ever heard was one New Year’s Eve. We’d all gathered at the Moon on the Hill, a bar not far from the precinct. All except Ellison and Sandburg of course. Jim had pulled another one of his ‘superman’ stunts to catch a serial arsonist and nearly got himself incinerated. It was pure dumb luck that he’d somehow managed to smell the tiny amount of accelerant the guy had left in the apartment block and got out just as the place exploded. 

A filthy, bedraggled Ellison and an ashen-faced Sandburg had gone home to change before joining us, and we were busy celebrating the end of another successful case, New Year’s Eve, the fact that Jim had pulled off the impossible yet again (somehow without getting himself killed in the process) and anything else we could possibly think of.

 

~*~*~

 

_  
“To Jim,” toasted a worse-for-wear Brian Rafe, raising his beer bottle with a slightly wavering hand. “May he always manage to pull off the impossible.”_

_“Gonna start calling him Superman!” exclaimed Brown with a grin, frowning slightly when he saw Simon glance warily at him._

_“What does that make Sandburg?” asked Rafe. “Jimmy Olsen?”_

_“No,” Joel said with an indulgent smile. “Blair’s more like ‘Q’ to Jim’s James Bond.”_

_“Yes!” crowed Brown. “That’s exactly what he is! God knows where Hairboy gets his weird ideas from.”_

_“When are we going to get to read his dissertation?” complained Rafe, and Simon sighed quietly. “And how the hell long does it take to write a thesis in the first place? My nephew got his doctorate in just over three years, and according to Sandburg he’s already been at it least that long. Has he even started writing it yet?”_

_“Where have they got to, anyway?” Simon piped up suddenly. “They left the station nearly an hour ago - it doesn’t take that long to get back to Prospect and change clothes.”_

_Brown snickered. “Maybe they had a better offer,” he suggested with a wicked grin._

_“Yeah…each other!” said Rafe, before dissolving into drunken laughter._

_“Nope, I know what they’re doing,” commented Joel. “It’s their New Year’s Resolution - they’re going to come out to us! After all, it is karaoke night tonight - I can just see it. Any minute now they’re going to walk in through the bar, arm in arm, a ring on each wedding finger, and start singing ‘Wind Beneath My Wings’ …”_

_“…staring lovingly into each others eyes,” howled Brown, resting his head down on the bar in front of him and dissolving into peals of alcohol-fuelled laughter._

_Seconds later the door to the bar swung open, and Ellison and Sandburg stepped in out of the rain. The rest of Major Crimes stared at them for just a second, watching as Blair started shaking the droplets of water out of his hair._

_“Hey, guys. What’s up?” Blair greeted with a grin, and everyone joined Rafe and Brown in helpless laughter._

_Blair looked at them in bemusement for a moment before turning to Jim in confusion. “What did I say?” he asked, but Jim just rolled his eyes, shaking his head good-naturedly._

_~*~*~_

__  
Needless to say, Joel’s prediction didn’t come true, and we all celebrated New Years Eve in our own distinctive style. Blair never did manage to figure out what we all thought was so funny, though.

That was December 31st, 1996, and up until then the bet was simply a bit of fun, nothing any of us really thought all that seriously about even though some of us did believe in it. It was just a running joke, like kids who spent their lunch hours talking about the crazy old witch-lady who lived at the end of their road. It didn’t really mean anything, and bizarrely whether it was true or not wasn’t even all that important – it was just a way of blowing off steam.

Ten days later, the idea of Jim and Blair becoming a couple suddenly got a lot more real…and a lot less amusing.

I wasn’t even that involved in the case at first. Ellison had been investigating the latest ‘designer drug’ to hit the streets of Cascade - nasty stuff that the kids used to call Golden because of the so-called ‘golden haze’ that descended over the vision of the kids who used it. The kids who didn’t kill themselves during drug-induced hallucinations, that is. We heard all about Jim’s undercover stint, and even though no-one seemed to want to say anything, it was pretty damn obvious that there was something wrong with his eyes. Even if he did seem to manage to get around the bullpen without too much trouble, he doesn’t usually make a habit of wearing sunglasses in the precinct, and Blair was staying even closer by his side than normal.

I was heading back into the parking garage after meeting with an informant when I first heard the commotion. It sounded like somebody shouting, and I could see people glancing over in the direction of the voice. Not something that would normally register on my radar from within the precinct, after all, suspects and criminals who’ve been arrested are always yelling obscenities at us as they’re brought in for processing, but I thought I heard Sandburg’s name, and headed over for a closer look, still only half paying attention.

What I saw made my blood run cold…

 

~*~*~  
 __

_“Jesus, he’s crazy!” someone yelled, and Brown turned the corner before stopping dead in shock. Sandburg was standing on the hood of one of the cars, a .38 in his hand as he yelled at the cops surrounding him._

_“Stay away from me!” he screamed, turning almost drunkenly as he aimed at the moving targets, though so far he hadn’t fired._

_“Blair!” Brown called out incredulously, wondering pointlessly where the hell Sandburg had managed to get a piece from, but his shout just sent Blair spinning round to aim in his direction, a single shot firing._

_“Shit!” Brown exclaimed, ducking out of sight behind a nearby pillar and wincing as the bullet ricocheted off the concrete. The shot sent everyone scrambling for cover, and Brown had horrifying visions of someone opening fire on Sandburg._

_“Hold your fire!” he yelled frantically. “Everyone just hold your fire!” No-one answered, but there was no return fire either, and Brown thanked God that he seemed to be the most senior officer present. “Everyone take cover,” he continued, raising his voice to carry over Sandburg’s nonsensical raving. “Keep him contained but whatever you do, don’t fire! I’ll get Ellison.”_

_Thankfully he had a clear run between himself and the door out of the garage that was shielded from Sandburg’s line of sight, and he took off at a run, racing up to Major Crimes as fast as he could. What the hell had happened to Sandburg?_

_He made it up to the seventh floor in record time, bursting in on Captain Banks and Ellison crowded around Ellison’s desk._

_“Captain, we have a serious problem in the garage!” he began breathlessly, seeing the look of concern on Ellison’s face as he scrambled around in his desk drawer. “Something’s wrong with Sandburg. He’s on the roof of one of the squad cars with a gun!”_

_“Shit,” Captain Banks cursed, pointing at the piles of pizza on Ellison’s desk. “HazMat are on their way down for this - it’s laced with Golden. Sandburg must have eaten some of it. Stay here,” he ordered Brown, “and make sure that no-one but HazMat goes near this stuff.”_

_“Sure, Captain,” Brown agreed, watching anxiously as they headed out of the bullpen at a dead run. In spite of his concern for Sandburg, though, he couldn’t help but notice that Jim kept his hand on Simon’s shoulder as they moved, and wondered again what had been wrong with Ellison over the last day or so._

_Impatiently he paced around Jim’s desk, casting worried glances at the innocuous-looking pizza boxes and wishing that he knew what was going on down in the garage. Thankfully it didn’t take long before HazMat arrived, and after telling them what little he knew, Brown took off after the others, his concern for Sandburg over-riding everything else._

_Halfway down the stairs he heard the sound of gunfire coming from the garage and he quickened his pace, forcing back his instinct to pull his own weapon. When he got there he peered through the glass window to work out what was happening. To his shock Jim was standing out in the open, crouched down with his hands in front of his face as if to ward off a blow…or a bullet._

_“Blair!” Jim shouted, the word muffled by the door and Brown eased through it, soundlessly joining Banks down behind the nearby parked car._

_“Easy buddy, easy buddy!” Jim said, and Brown watched as Sandburg turned away from Jim and placed both hands on the gun as if to steady his aim to fire again. “Listen to me!” Jim continued, raising his voice. Sandburg stilled for just a second before turning back to face Jim, rage written across his face. “Your gun isn't gonna work with the fire people,” Jim said, but Sandburg wasn’t listening._

_Brown glanced nervously over at Simon. Ellison was out there with no cover, with nowhere to run to should Sandburg fire again. Blair shook his head and tightened his grip on the gun. Brown found himself holding his breath, praying that Jim could talk him down. “They're not gonna be afraid of your fire,” Jim continued. “It's only gonna make them stronger.”_

_One of the fuel lines had been ruptured, hissing ominously as it sprayed gas all over the floor of the garage. One tiny spark from another bullet would turn the whole garage into something out of the towering inferno._

_“You've gotta use the bat echo trick.”_

_The words made no sense to Brown and he glanced across to Simon in confusion, but he could see that Simon had no idea what Ellison was talking about either. Blair was staring at his partner as if he was the one who was acting crazy. “What trick?”_

_“You know, the one you taught me. Uh, you close your eyes, and you clap your hands.” As Brown watched from relative safety behind the car, Jim clapped his hands together, and Brown shook his head without thinking. Even from this far away he could see this wasn’t working. Blair didn’t seem to be in any condition to listen to his partner._

_‘Jesus,’ Brown thought. ‘What if Sandburg shoots him?’_

_“No, man, that is not gonna work here!” Blair shouted, gesturing angrily with the gun, but Jim was still talking, keeping his tone low and gentle as if he was trying to soothe a skittish horse._

_But Sandburg wasn’t listening. Instead, he seemed near tears, apparently unable to stand still. His hand shook as it held the gun, but he showed no signs of putting it down._

_“Blair, come on. Try it. Trust me. You can save the world here. Come on.”_

_“I don't think that's gonna work here, Jim,” Blair repeated, but his voice was quieter, shaking, and he seemed less certain than he had before. Jim took another step forward, reaching his hands out to Sandburg._

_“Come on, give me the gun, Blair,” he whispered._

_Brown watched with his heart in his throat as Blair swung the gun round to face Jim. It was uncertain whether the kid was about to hand over the weapon or shoot his partner instead, and Brown wondered semi-hysterically whether a whole police garage full of cops was going to stand there and watch one of their own get shot. But the only alternative was to shoot Sandburg instead, and that outcome was equally as unacceptable._

_Everyone simply stood there and watched, mesmerized by the performance taking place in front of them. Brown had never heard such a gentle, reassuring quality to Jim’s voice before._

_“I just don’t think that’s going to work here,” Blair muttered quietly, cocking the gun. Brown gasped involuntarily at the sound of the bullet hitting the chamber. Jesus, it was going to happen. Sandburg was going to shoot Jim._

_But Jim didn’t react at all to the threat. Instead he simply took another step closer, placing one hand on Blair’s arm and carefully easing the gun away so that it was aiming down at the floor, his left hand closing around the barrel. “Trust me,” he said softly. “That’s right. You gotta clap your hands,” he continued, and now Jim was the one holding the gun. But even though the threat was over, Jim never took his eyes off Sandburg, one hand sliding gently down Sandburg’s arm until just their fingers touched. “You gotta clap your hands.”_

_Sandburg still looked as skeptical as Henri felt, but nevertheless he began slowly clapping his hands, staring down at Jim._

_Move over Robert Redford, Brown thought with relief, shaking his head in amazement that the situation had been resolved without injury. The Horse Whisperer has nothing on this._

_Simon left Brown’s side and ran over to them._

_“You did it!” Jim praised his partner, repeating the phrase again as he and Simon together helped Blair climb down from the car._

_“I’m sorry!” Blair sobbed quietly, and on hearing the misery in his voice Brown took a single step closer, stopping dead when Blair suddenly collapsed into Ellison’s arms._

_“That’s okay,” Jim reassured Sandburg as he eased him down to the ground, kneeling behind him and enveloping Blair in an embrace._

_“We need a medic over here now!” Banks yelled._

_Two uniforms ran to call an ambulance, and Brown was left simply standing there, watching helplessly as Jim cradled Blair’s unconscious form back and forth like a baby._

_“Hang in there,” he soothed. “It’s alright.”_

__

~*~*~

 

It was three anxious days before Sandburg came out of his coma, and apart from maybe four hours during which he took down the bastards responsible, Jim never left his partner’s side. 

The rest of us took turns visiting, keeping as much of an eye on Jim’s pale, anxious face as we did on Sandburg’s sleeping one. By then I’d seen and recognized the fear on Jim’s face as he cradled Sandburg in his arms on the filthy, cement floor of the garage, muttering something about a failing heartbeat that had us all panicking.

Up until that moment, the idea of the two of them together had been little more than a lighthearted joke; a way to lighten the mood when necessary. But after coming so close to losing Sandburg and seeing Jim’s terrified reaction as he held him, it didn’t seem quite so funny.

Suddenly we could see just what they meant to each other, and regardless of whether or not you believed they were sharing a bed, we could see how much losing one of them would destroy the other. Losing a work partner is bad enough, losing a friend is worse, but losing a lover? Or God forbid losing all three at once? I don’t see how anyone could really survive that.

And even though Sandburg had pulled through, just the threat of losing one half of Major Crimes’ best team, and a man who had become a good friend to just about everyone in the department, was enough to jar us out of our complacency. Not to sound too dramatic about it, we’d all been given a second chance with Sandburg, especially Jim, and we were all determined that we’d never come that close to losing him again.

After that, the mood changed around Major Crimes. I wasn’t the only one who suddenly found himself feeling overly protective of the two of them, and even though they were never aware of it, the entire department closed ranks around them.

We came down hard on anyone outside the department that we heard speculating about the two of them, particularly those bigoted few who were disdainful of the very idea. We were extra careful that no-one ever heard us discussing the bets, though that wasn’t as hard as it sounds, since the bets themselves had all but stopped anyway. The wagers been running for so long that we didn’t even have to refer to them any more. Whenever something came up that reminded one of us of them, pretty much all we had to do was just grin at each other - we knew were all on the same wavelength.

Sometimes I caught Jim watching us thoughtfully, and was almost tempted to say something, to reassure him that we knew, that it was okay and that we were all there if we was needed, but in the end I kept that to myself. Maybe there was still a tiny part of me that didn’t have the courage of my convictions, or maybe it was something more like don’t ask, don’t tell, because I didn’t want to ruin the game, I’m still not sure. If Jim did know what we were doing, then he never said anything, and I hope he knows that we all had the best of intentions.

So life carried on as normal, and together we somehow managed to deal with the usual rash of psychos and arsonists that Cascade always seemed to attract. All things considered the job was a blast, despite what some of the uniforms want. It’s odd, really; half the officers in the precinct want to make it to the giddy heights of Major Crimes, and the other half think we must be nuts to want to deal with the really nasty, high-profile cases every day. But it feels good, you know? Every time we catch a serial killer, or stop an arsonist before he can burn down another house with children inside, it feels like we’re really making a difference – doing something tangible to make things better.

Sure, it’s difficult sometimes, we all have days when we wonder what the hell we were thinking to sign up to Major Crimes in the first place, but that’s when the friendly camaraderie helps to get us through the day, and somehow things always seems better in the morning.

Then, one day, I arrived for work to discover that Ellison had disappeared. The entire place was in chaos. Jim’s apartment had been shot full of holes and had CSI climbing all over it looking for clues, and his car had been found abandoned in a garage on 8th and Waterman above the wreckage of someone that had literally driven through the side of the building.

On top of that, Sandburg was all but in protective custody after having been chased over half the city by the two men with guns who had shot up his place. The problem was, nobody seemed to have the slightest idea who could have taken Jim.

I remember when I first found out he was missing – it had only been a couple of weeks since the Golden incident and the first thing I did was look in Hairboy’s direction, remembering the panic on Jim’s face down in the parking garage.

Hairboy was sheet white and haunting the bullpen like a ghost. It was bad enough that he’d been shot at in the first place, but we all knew just how afraid he was for Jim, just as we knew how likely it was that Jim was already dead – not that anyone dared voice the concern out loud.

Simon was refusing to let Sandburg out of his sight, and although the kid was holding it together just barely, I could see how badly his hands were shaking as he tried to pour himself a coffee. In the end I pushed him gently down into a chair and poured the coffee myself, pressing the cup into his hands and urging him to get some rest, not that it did any good.

Three hours later, Sandburg slipped away from Joel’s watch over him and went walk about at Rainier. Not the best idea when there were two hired guns trying very hard to kill him – Captain Banks was almost apoplectic with fear and frustration.

Finally, with a collective effort, some solid detective work and a whole lot of luck, we knew where Jim was and who was responsible for his disappearance. We descended on the old Olympia building like gangbusters, determined to get Jim back in one piece.

We knew the instant we arrived that we had the right place – a van crashed into a dumpster right in front of us, with one of the tires hissing angrily from a well-aimed bullet wound. 

Simon was in the first car with Sandburg, Rafe and I following behind with another squad car of uniforms. It didn’t take long to contain the scene – we had one body in pieces on the floor, and two others slumped over the front seats of the van, dazed and bloody.

Simon was first, determinedly keeping Sandburg behind him as he reached in, pulled out a brunette and pushed her against the side of the van…

 

~*~*~

 

_…“Come on, out of the car!” Simon snapped unnecessarily. “Where is he? Where is he?! You have exactly three seconds to tell me where Jim Ellison is.”_

_Brown wasn’t convinced that the woman was coherent enough to even know who Ellison was, but in the end, she didn’t have to. Moving round to check on the other passenger who was still unconscious in the front seat, Brown kept one eye on Sandburg and was just in time to see a huge, relieved smile appear on his face._

_“Simon!” he said, staring up at the roof of the Olympia building. “Look!”_

_Everyone followed his line of sight, and the Ellison-shaped silhouette standing on the roof left them all wearing grins to match Sandburg’s._

_“He’s done it again,” Brown muttered, before turning back to the now groaning guy in the van._

_One ambulance later, all the suspects had been mirandized, arrested and carted off to either the hospital, the morgue or the precinct. Glancing around, Brown noticed that he couldn’t see Sandburg anywhere._

_“Captain?” he called over to Simon, who was directing some of the uniformed officers. “Where’s Hairboy?”_

_“He’s gone up to Ellison,” Simon shouted back, before glancing uncertainly at the building. “You’d better go check on them both, make sure Jim’s alright.”_

_Nodding, Brown headed into the building at a run, gun in hand just in case they were wrong, and hadn’t rounded up all of Colonel Oliver’s troops. Most of the building was deserted, and it didn’t take long for Brown to clear all the floors as he headed up to the roof and Ellison’s last known location._

_The access door out onto the roof was pushed to but not fully shut, and Brown peered carefully round the door before walking through it. He spotted Ellison and Sandburg instantly._

_Jim was sitting with his back against the railing at the edge of the building, his eyes half closed and exhaustion seeping from his entire body. Sandburg was kneeling by his side, leaning in close to his partner with one hand rubbing gently up and down his arm as he talked quietly. Jim looked dreadful, two days’ stubble standing out starkly against his pale face._

_Concerned, Brown was just about to call over and ask if they needed to call another ambulance to the scene when Sandburg moved his hand up to cup the back of Jim’s neck, leaned in close and kissed him gently on the lips. Ellison responded almost immediately, eyes closing completely as he leaned forward, deepening the kiss with a soft moan._

_Brown could feel the smile creeping over his own features, watching through the crack in the door as the two men kissed. Then Sandburg put both arms around his partner, resting his forehead against Jim’s in open relief._

_From somewhere on the floor below, Brown could hear movement and voices as Simon made his way up the stairs, and he backed up a couple of steps away from the door, clearing his throat noisily as he did so. Somehow, he had a feeling that neither man would want the Captain to see them like this._

_“Sandburg?” he called out loudly. “Ellison?”_

_A second’s silence passed, and then Blair called back. “Out here, H!”_

_Unable to suppress the grin on his face, Brown walked quickly through the door, amused to see Blair back to his former position, kneeling innocently by his partner’s side. Only their slightly flushed faces gave a hint of what they’d just been doing. “It’s about time you showed up, Jim,” Brown greeted cheerfully, and Jim replied with a weary smile._

_“Hey, H.”_

_Brown crouched down by Jim’s side. “Do you need an ambulance?” he asked more seriously. “Can you walk?”_

_“I’m not sure,” Jim admitted, beginning to try and get to his feet. “They drugged me, but I think it’s wearing off.”_

_Immediately, Brown and Sandburg positioned themselves on either side of Jim, supporting him with an arm over each shoulder as he stood on decidedly shaky legs. Brown didn’t miss that Ellison’s hold on Sandburg was much tighter than his hold on Brown himself, and he smothered back a quiet chuckle._

_All was right with the world - Ellison and Sandburg were back together again._

_And best of all, he had $20 to collect from Rafe._

_Brown helped Sandburg half-carry Ellison down the stairs until they met up with Simon, whistling cheerfully all the way down._


End file.
